Coindesk

Bitcoin’s correction may just be getting started. In fact, the crypto sector as a whole could be facing a severe downtrend reminiscent of 2022.“I could see us going back to a five handle by the end of the year,” Quinn Thompson, founder of crypto hedge fund Lekker Capital, told CoinDesk in an interview. A "five handle," i.e. a price between $50,000 and $59,999, would be down substantially from the already shaky current $83,000 level and roughly a 50% decline from bitcoin's peak just above $109,000 just more than two months ago.“I don't think it happens quickly, which is why it would be very painful and shocking to people because nothing about the current market conditions is very volatile, with big...

The first quarter of 2025 tells a clear story about DeFi's evolution. While yields across major lending platforms have compressed significantly, innovation at the market's edges demonstrates DeFi's continued maturation and growth.The Great Yield CompressionDeFi yields have declined sharply across all major lending platforms:The vaults.fyi USD benchmark has fallen below 3.1%, below the U.S. 1-month T-bill yield of ~4.3% for the first time since late 2023. This benchmark, a weighted average across four leading markets, approached 14% in late 2024.Spark has implemented four consecutive rate decreases in 2025 alone. Starting the year at 12.5%, rates were cut to 8.75%, then 6.5%, and now sit at 4.5%.Aave's stablecoin yields on mainnet are around 3% for USDC and USDT, levels that would...

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) withdrew two pieces of crypto-related staff guidance on Friday, further streamlining its approach to crypto regulation.The first advisory rescinded on Friday was Staff Advisory No. 18-14, Advisory with Respect to Virtual Currency Derivative Product Listings. Originally published in May 2018, the advisory established guidelines for crypto-related derivatives, including requiring reporting firms to maintain “close coordination with CFTC surveillance group” and establishing a large trader reporting threshold of five bitcoins (or the equivalent value for other cryptocurrencies), among other suggestions. On Friday, the CFTC published a letter saying that “additional staff experience” and “increasing market growth” had rendered the guidance unnecessary.The second advisory, Staff Advisory No. 23-07, Review of Risks Associated with Expansion...

A new artificial intelligence-infused blockchain with Andreseen Horowitz's backing is "ultimately designed as a replacement for Bitcoin," according to its co-founder Travis Good.The far-fetched claim is rooted in what Good prognosticates as unvarnished reality: Bitcoin's encryption mechanisms are "getting really stale" and could be "completely obsolete within five years," creating a business conundrum for the miners behind it."You've got people who've invested billions of dollars in hash power for securing a network in ASICs," he told CoinDesk at this year's ethDenver conference. "And the question is like, where do they all go?"His answer is Ambient, a blockchain with deep capabilities in the AI space – the "future economy," as Good puts it – that could become a "decentralized competitor to...

You’ve probably heard this at a dinner party: “If only we had bought Bitcoin ten years ago.” Now imagine that conversation echoing in the corridors of a central bank, where the stakes are a nation missing one of the most asymmetric financial opportunities of the century.For emerging economies — countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, South Africa, Nigeria, Thailand, or Vietnam — strategic exposure to cryptocurrencies is essential for future economic resilience. They collectively represent over 40% of the global population and approximately 25% of global GDP, yet they remain vulnerable to external economic shocks, including currency fluctuations, trade disruptions, and more. Today, their sovereign reserves remain heavily reliant on traditional assets like gold and foreign exchange. But those aren’t sufficient...